Chris Kraus - The Four Spent the Day Together
WithChris Kraus
In conversation withMaria Fusco
On:17th October 2025, 7:00pm - 8:00pm
Attendance options:
We're excited to be welcoming Chris Kraus to the bookshop for an event to celebrate her latest novel, The Four Spent the Day Together. An unforgettable new novel from the author of the modern classic I Love Dick— a witty, probing journey into a fractured America, culminating in the investigation of a teenage murder.
Kraus will be in conversation with interdisciplinary writer Maria Fusco.
This event will take place in the bookshop with an in-person audience, as well as a livestream for attendees watching from home. There will be a signing after the event.
In-person vouchers can be redeemed on the night of the event against a single copy of The Four Spent the Day Together – we will have a list of attendees with vouchers to be redeemed. Please note that only one voucher can be redeemed per book. Livestream vouchers are valid until the day after the event and can be redeemed on our website against a single copy of The Four Spent the Day Together.
About The Four Spent the Day Together:
On the Iron Range of northern Minnesota, at the end of the last decade, three teenagers shot and killed an older acquaintance after spending the day with him. In a cold, rundown town, the three young people were quickly arrested and imprisoned. No one knows why they did it.
At the time of the murder, Catt Greene and her husband, Paul Garcia, are living nearby in a house they’d bought years earlier as a summer escape from Los Angeles. Undergoing a period of personal turmoil, moving between LA and Minnesota — between the urban art world and the rural poverty of the icy Iron Range — Catt turns away from her own life and towards the murder case, which soon becomes an obsession. In her attempt to pierce through the mystery surrounding the murder and to understand the teenagers’ lives, Catt also finds herself travelling back through the idiosyncratic, aspirational lives of her parents in the working-class Bronx and small-town, blue-collar Milford, Connecticut.
Written in three linked parts, The Four Spent the Day Together explores the histories of three generations of American lives and the patterns that repeat over lifetimes, and is piercing commentary on the pressures of lives lived on the edge.
Please note: Tickets for our events are non-refundable. Professional photography and videography may take place during this event. Thank you for your understanding.
Participants:
Chris Kraus Author
David Rattray (1946–1993) was a poet, translator and scholar, fluent in most Western languages, Sanskrit, Latin, and Greek. He translated the works of Antonin Artaud, René Crevel, Roger Gilbert-Lecomte, among others. Chris Kraus is the author of four novels, including I Love Dick and Summer of Hate; two books of art and cultural criticism; and most recently, After Kathy Acker: A Literary Biography. She received the College Art Association's Frank Jewett Mather Award in Art Criticism in 2008, and a Warhol Foundation Art Writing grant in 2011. She lives in Los Angeles.
Maria Fusco Chair
Dr Maria Fusco is Professor of Interdisciplinary Writing at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art & Design. She is a working-class Belfast-born interdisciplinary writer working across art writing, fiction, performance and theory and holds a PhD from the School of Languages, Literatures & Cultures, University of Edinburgh.
The venue
The Portobello Bookshop
46 Portobello High Street
Edinburgh
EH15 1DA
Telephone: 0131 629 6756
Website: www.theportobellobookshop.com
Wheelchair Access
We have a ramp at the front of the shop which has a ratio of 1:10 and loading capacity of 300kg, and so should be able to be used by most wheelchair users or those with mobility vehicles. The front doors are fully automated. Our shop interior is designed to allow access throughout for wheelchair users and prams, though please note there is only 700mm wide clearance to access the staff toilet.
Sound
We use a PA system to enhance the audio at our live events. We also have a hearing loop system installed, if you’d like to use our loop system during an event please let us know and we’ll make sure we have it set up and connected to the live audio feed during the event. If you wish to attend an event and require BSL interpretation, please give us a few weeks notice and we’ll do our best to arrange an interpreter.